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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Cerulean

After watching the radar for migrating birds last night I figured it would be a pretty productive birding today. Species diversity wasn't spectacular but it is a little early in the year for great diversity. There were however large numbers of the species that were present.

Over the past few days the rain has stopped but the floodwaters are as bad as they have been so many areas around Bloomington are still not birdable (is that a word?). So I birded a small portion of McGowan Road and throughout Yellowwood State Forest which has not been as affected by the flooding.

A beautiful Cerulean Warbler.

I saw 21 species of warblers without really trying for some of the easy breeders which I missed (such as Pine and Yellow). Blue-headed Vireos finally made an appearance with three individuals on the morning. White-throated Sparrow numbers are very good and I also had my first Lincoln's Sparrow of the year. Orange-crowned Warbler and Northern Waterthrush were my only first of the year warblers.

The same bird as the above picture. This Cerulean was very cooperative and stayed fairly low in the trees.